Complexity of Application Presentation/Streaming and Distribution

I wanted to highlight and explain the complexity of designing Application Deployment and Management for Windows Desktops and VDI environments in a single diagram.

(opps, I mean Microsoft 🙂

Update 02/04/16 Adding a few Application Deployment Options

Click Once Applications

Container Applications (AppZerto)

Application Layer (e.g. Citrix AppDisk.)

There are so many options for Application Deployment and they are all very complex and architecturally different and affects the user interaction with the application.

You can also have combination of these application deployment and management technologies. Example Citrix XenApp + AppV + SCCM.

The core problems is Usability, when you design such complex solutions its almost impossible to guarantee the same level of usability as a locally installed application which is what the end user is expecting.. (Example of usability – Copy/Pase, Print, Content sharing,etc)

Combining this with the complexity of User State and profile management options, it is no wonder many VDI projects fail and cause major frustrations for end users.

[Update 07.11.2014] – I saw information on Cloudvolumes,com, when it was released, but, they didn’t release any information. Until VMware acquired them. I think this is the future of Application Deployment – VMWare AppVolumes. This essentially can solve this complexity. Al thought, how it handles, upgrades, conflicts,etc Needs to be tested. I can’t wait for Microsoft to come up with a similar solution. –

Since writing this article and doing some more research on VMWare AppVolumes and UniDesk. http://www.unidesk.com/software, could solve the problem of delivering applications and maintaining Microsoft and Application updates.